The world’s largest pipeline company ran away from a hint of public scrutiny,
like FERC changed its commission meeting date to try to avoid protesters.
Maybe… public opinion matters?

The pipeline companies are watching all the opposition.
And the opposition is shadowing all the pipeline companies.
Score one for the opposition!
Plus plenty of opportunities coming up for more concerted opposition
against any new fossil fuel tentacles through our countryside or under our rivers.

Kinder Morgan officials backed out of a scheduled public
presentation Wednesday at a local emergency planning meeting.

Carla Roark, a compliance and safety specialist at the Kinder
Morgan-owned LNG facility on Elba Island, had been scheduled to give
the Chatham Emergency Planning Committee an overview of the plant’s
operations in a brief “agency spotlight” at the end of
the hourlong meeting at the Civic Center.

Instead, Chatham Emergency Management Agency interim director Dennis
Jones opened the meeting by announcing that Kinder Morgan had opted
out of the presentation. Jones said Kinder Morgan’s planned
presentation had been inaccurately presented on social media and
elsewhere as an opportunity to learn about the company’s disaster
plan for the proposed liquefied natural gas export terminal at Elba
Island.

As a result, the company’s corporate office in Houston pulled the
plug on the presentation.

Thanks for your attention, but I don’t see anywhere the post above
says Kinder Morgan will be presenting at this meeting.

I imagine people would be happy to ask you questions if you appear
at that meeting, however.

-jsq

Well apparently KMI wasn’t happy to be asked questions,
because KMI “opted out of the presentation”.

Wait a minute: if KMI cancelled, then KMI was scheduled to present!
So who’s being inaccurate?
The Coastal Group and SpectraBusters social media that never actually
said KMI was going to be there, or the KMI comment saying
“Kinder Morgan will not be presenting at this meeting.”?

Maybe the pipeline companies don’t like it that people are piecing
together the tentacles of the pipeline squid that’s trying to
gouge its way throughout our countryside and under our rivers.

As KC Allan from Savannah puts it:

They’re perpetrating a massive clandestine transference of American
commodity wealth from public land into private pockets just like
Russia when wall came down.
Only they have to sneak it through
citizens’ backyards to get to market.
Very messy and inconvenient for them.
BUT, they have this defunct model of public utility
legislation to pervert….

In acquitting Laura Gubisch, a resident of the District, Judge
McCabe chastised the government for how it handled the situation of
people wanting to access the main room where commissioners meet,
which in the past has been the site of verbal disruptions by members
of BXE opposed to FERC’s approval of virtually every gas
infrastructure project that comes before it, including interstate
pipelines, compressor stations and LNG facilities.

This sister [earth] now cries out to us because of the harm we have
inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods
with which God has endowed her. We have come to see ourselves as her
lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence
present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the
symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air
and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened
and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our
poor; she “groans in travail” (Rom 8:22). We have
forgotten that we ourselves are dust of the earth (cf. Gen 2:7); our
very bodies are made up of her elements, we breathe her air and we
receive life and refreshment from her waters.

Well, we the sons and daughters of the earth cry out for the earth:
enough!
No more fossil fuel fracking, pipelines, or LNG export!

Meanwhile, the Kinder Morgan that ran away from presenting in Savannah
is the same KMI that
has applied to FERC to build a natural gas pipeline across north Florida from Suwannee County to Jacksonville, which is gearing up for LNG export.
And that KMI FERC application explicitly says Sabal Trail can connect
if it wants to.
So there’s a KMI tentacle entwined with the Spectra Energy Sabal Trail
tentacle all the way to Jaxport LNG export.

“Many of these extremists believe the debates over pollution,
protection of wildlife, safety, and property rights have been
overshadowed by the promise of jobs and cheaper oil prices. These
extremists include those who oppose federal, state, and local
governments’ interaction or legal interference in matters of
domestic oil and natural gas production.

Well, no, Houston FBI, protecting our own land, water, and air
from invaders from Houston is not extremism: it’s the kind of real
conservatism and conservation this country was founded on!

You know what’s extreme? This that you said, Houston FBI:

“The Keystone pipeline, as part of the oil and natural gas
industry, is vital to the security and economy of the United
States.”

No, the fossil fuel industry is not vital to anything any longer
but the profits of a few industry executives and investors,
and their paid lapdogs in law enforcement and “regulatory” agencies.
Solar power is already cheaper, faster, and far cleaner and safer,
with wind power to back it up.

You want to investigate some extremists, FBI?
How about start by investigating FERC!

Maybe the fossil fuel industry doesn’t want people to realize
it is pillaging the planet for a few final bucks before the world turns completely to sun, wind, and water power.

Maybe if we stop a few pipelines the sun will rise faster
as more investors pull out of the pipeline boondoggle.

This is still America, where, despite all the fossil fuel influence on the political system from top to bottom, the First Amendment still applies:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion,
or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom
of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The fossil fuel industry doesn’t like that.
Diane Leopold, president of Dominion Energy, pushing the Atlantic Coast Pipeline
from West Virginia to Virginia and North Carolina (the same one Spectra Energy ran away from after numerous local resolutions against it)
said in May:

“We need more than good laws and regulations if important
infrastructure projects are to get built,” said Leopold, who
added she was speaking out to “give voice to an
industry.”

“We in the natural gas industry need to speak clearly, speak
effectively and — when necessary — speak loudly,”
she added. “We need to make all stakeholders aware of how
critical it is to our society that we move forward with growing and
improving our natural gas infrastructure.”

Well, no, we don’t want the fossil fuel industry to have
dominion to take over and pollute our lands, waters, and air!

We are the people of America and the world.
We want clean air and water and our own property rights.
And we’re not going to
let the last greedy grasp of the 20th century fossil fuel industry stop us.
We’re going to get clean, renewable, 21st century
sun, wind, and water power.

A bunch of opportunities to exercise the First Amendment are coming up:

The emergency planning committee exists to “promote and
facilitate the safety of all persons in Chatham County with respect
to the potential exposure and or threat of major emergencies and
disasters both natural and man-made,” according to its
website. Its functions and duties are authorized by the Chatham
County Board of Commissioners, in accordance with federal emergency
planning and “Right-to-Know” law.

A handful of people who had come to the meeting specifically to
address Kinder Morgan challenged Jones, suggesting that safety at
the LNG facility is a community concern. Kinder Morgan is planning
to convert Elba to an export facility capable of processing 2.5
million tons of LNG per year. The Coastal Group of the Georgia
Sierra Club posted on its Facebook page that “a worst-case
event would be extremely destructive to lives, property, and the
environment.”

“We live here and so do you,” said downtown resident
Simona Perry, who is conversant with natural gas issues through her
position as vice president/assistant executive director with the
nonprofit Pipeline Safety Coalition.

“If Kinder Morgan doesn’t want to talk, does that mean they
don’t talk?” asked Steve Willis, of the Coastal Group of the
Georgia Sierra Club. “I just don’t think Kinder Morgan should
be in charge of the Chatham County government.”

Jones said there had already been public meetings about the
facility’s plans and that there would be more, including one he
would try to make happen.

“I just said I’ll contact them and see if we can get a
community meeting together,” Jones told Willis.

At the meeting’s conclusion a CEMA representative collected names
and contact information for those interested in any future community
meeting.

No, pipeline companies, frackers, LNG exporters:
you can’t have our lands and waters.
And if you want them, as the Spartans said to the Persians,
Molon Labe!
As the Georgians translated for the British:
Come and Take It!